Degree in Medicine in 1973 from University of Padova. Full Professor of General Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Padova, Tullio Pozzan served as Director of the Department of Experimental Biomedical Sciences from 1990 to 2002, and is currently Director of the Biosciences Postgraduate School; served as Chairman of the European Cell Biology Organization (ECBO) from 1999 to 2001 and of the Italian Cell Biology and Differentiation Society from 2000 to 2004; has acted as Coordinator of a MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education and Research) Centre of Excellence, and currently serves as Director of the Interdepartmental Centre which developed from the Centre of Excellence. Tullio Pozzan was awarded the Feltrinelli prize for medicine in 2000 and presently is member of the Telethon Scientific Committee. He has been member of EMBO since 1992, of the European Academy since 1998, of Accademia Galileiana since 1997, and of the Accademia dei Lincei since 2001. He was appointed to the USA National Academy of Sciences in 2006.
For the last 25 years his main scientific interest has been the control of Ca2+ and other second messenger homeostasis in living cells. In this field he has contributed a few important methodological improvements, from the intracellularly trappable fluorescent Ca2+ indicators to the recombinant targeted aequorins to the genetically encoded cAMP probes. The interest for the methodological aspects have been always dictated by the needs of finding original ways to better understand cell physiology and pathology. Among his major contributions to the understanding of second messenger signalling, the discovery of the early rise in cytosolic Ca2+ concentration in lymphocytes upon mitogenic stimulation, the key role of Ca2+ and protein kinase C in neutrophil activation, the capacity of mitochondria to rapidly take up Ca2+ in living cells, the existence and role of cAMP microdomains in cardiac cells. At present the experimental activity of the group coordinated by Tullio Pozzan is carried out primarily at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Padova, located a few hundred meters from the VIMM, in close collaboration with VIMM groups. At the VIMM his main role has been that of coordinating the activity of young collaborators with the aim of helping them reaching complete independence. Three of them (F. Mammano, A. Viola and M. Zaccolo) are now independent PIs and C. Lodovichi, the last young PI recruited at the VIMM, is closely collaborating with Dr. Pozzan.
Last updated: March 2007 - TP